Mast MTN logo
By Victory Oghene
Some Nigerians have threatened to dump their Mobile Telephone Network MTN’s SIM cards, also known as a subscriber identity module on account of the major outage experienced on its network throughout yesterday till the early hours of this morning.
A SIM is a smart card that stores identification information that pinpoints a smartphone to a specific mobile network.
Many of its customers have lamented difficulty making calls or using the internet.
Some MTN subscribers lamented that the outage affected their businesses, while others said they could not link up with their families and loved ones on account of the outage.
Richard Otega while speaking with NATIONAL WAVES said he sent some valuables to her mother but could not speak with her to inform her due to the outage. “I think I’m done with MTN” he said..
Another subscriber, Mrs Blessing Omisakin stated that her mum and niece that were supposed to link up with her at Berger were stranded after alighting from an inter state bus at Berger, Lagos State.
She said “Can you imagine? My mother and my niece left Benin by 7am and arrived at Berger by 1pm but she could not locate me as there was no network on my MTN. She was stranded for close to six hours. I had to go back home and borrow my husband’s phone who uses another network to call her. I had searched for her at Berger for close to six hours albeit unsuccessful”
Mrs Titilayo Odesanyo, an MTN subscriber, was so infuriated while speaking with NATIONAL WAVES, she said she could not pick up her goods that was sent from Idumota, Lagos, because of the outage experienced by MTN network.
“The driver could not contact me to deliver my goods, he had to take the goods to his house and deliver same this morning when my network was restored. I have some goods that ought to have been kept in the refrigerator but was kept in the bus till the next day. This has really affected my business” she lamented.
Lucky Ejiro a student with one of the Lagos based universities said he could not get in touch with his parents for his upkeep on account of the outage.
“I’m not in a good mood. I’m depressed. I went to bed with empty stomach yesterday because I could not speak with my parents to send my upkeep” he said.
Mrs. Olubisi Shade could not hide her disdain for the MTN network. She said she would have to subscribe to an alternative network on account of this incessant outage. She added that her business suffered a setback due to the bad network.
MTN Nigeria while reacting to the outage in network said it suffered a glitch that affected its services across the country.
It blamed the service outage on multiple fibre cuts which affected voice and data services.
In a statement published on social media, the telecommunications provider said: “You have been experiencing challenges connecting to the network due to a major service outage caused by multiple fibre cuts, affecting voice and data services.
“Our engineers are working hard to resolve with services gradually being restored in some areas.
“We apologise for the inconvenience and ask for your patience and understanding as the team works to restore full service as soon as possible.”
